Structural Integrity
by Mongoose
Summary: Over two thousand years before the Battle of Yavin, a lone Squib infiltrates an enemy vessel as an attack force assaults his ill-defended homeworld.


"_**Structural Integrity"**_

_by Kevin Frane_

_(The events in this story take place roughly 2,131 years before the Battle of Yavin.)_

The flickering lights inside the vessel's silent corridor provided just enough illumination to show that the ship was in just as bad shape on the inside as it was on the outside. The walls were grimy, the air was musty, and the occasional rattle of plating and hiss of gas did nothing to paint a better picture. It seemed a miracle that the ship could still fly at all.

_It'd be too much to hope that this piece of junk _would_ just fall apart on its own,_ thought Terkeeli-amurdionon as he padded softly down the start corridor ahead of him.

No, not only would that be too much to hope, the Squib knew, but it was the wrong thing to hope. He had friends who were already infiltrating other parts of the vessel (that was first and foremost), to say nothing of the fact that the ship itself was perhaps the only clue as to what was even going on here.

Neither Terkeeli nor any of his associates had even been able to identify what make or model this ship was. The exterior design offered no conclusive clues as to its origins, and now that he had a look at the inside, the Squib could only note, with some amusement, that the expansive patches of rust on the wall plating were a color that was strikingly similar to his own pale russet pelt. His people were a breed of galactic scavengers, both thriving and delighting in the trash left behind by other species, and if a Squib didn't recognize a particular piece of technology, then who knew where it must've been dug up?

A puzzle, to be sure, but Terkeeli would only worry about the details once he determined whether they were relevant or not. There were more important things to worry about right now; namely, the group of four heavily-armed assault frigates that were escorting this flying derelict on a direct approach to Skor II, the Squib homeworld.

One of those ships sailed into view outside one of the starboard viewports, somewhat battered and yet undaunted even as Republic starfighters and a pair of vessels from the Squib Reclamation Fleet tried to fight it off. Before he'd boarded the decrepit vessel he was now tasked with exploring, Terkeeli had heard the Republic forces order the Reclamation Fleet away from the combat zone, but if even half of those ships actually pulled out, he'd have been surprised. He knew his people, and he especially knew (firsthand, on several counts) that it was the more brash and brazen Squib spacers who tended to end up as captains on Reclamation Fleet vessels.

Besides, this was the Squib homeworld under direct attack. Unprecedented, yes, and probably something that they were unprepared for, but not something that they—or Terkeeli—would let go unanswered.

Terkeeli had to trust that those brave captains and pilots out there could handle themselves, though. His job, and the job of his team, was to get to the bottom of things here, and there probably wasn't much time.

Sniffing at the air, Terkeeli caught the whiff of plasma and tibanna gas coming from deeper inside the ship. The whole vessel rumbled and shook for a few seconds, then; it hadn't been hit, the Squib could tell, but there no way that the structural integrity of the ship was going to hold very much longer.

Rounding a corner into what he guessed was the branch that led toward the heart of the ship, Terkeeli's vision suddenly got smacked ninety degrees to the left as a pair of arms grabbed him from behind, one gloved hand holding his head back by the snout as another brought a vibroblade within a centimeter of his throat.

The dull whine of the vibrating edge made Terkeeli's ears twitch and buzz, before that quiet sound was overridden by a muffled chuckle and a gruff voice, distorted by a helmet. "Well, look at what we have here. Little rats scampering about on the ship."

The figure that had grabbed him shifted awkwardly, being close to twice Terkeeli's height. He had leverage on the Squib, which was a bad thing, and all the more alarming since Terkeeli should rightly have known that he was coming.

"What comes next, then?" his attacker asked, voice retaining that chuckle from before. "Going to try to bargain for your life? That's what your kind does, don't they?"

Terkeeli twisted in the taller man's grip (he was definitely male, and probably human), but couldn't eke much more leverage out of his position. "The only deal I'll offer you is this," he choked out. "You let me go, and I'll see to it that this ends peaceably."

The chuckling turned into an outright laugh. "So much for the Squib penchant for haggling. I was looking forward to so much more." His hand tightened on the vibroblade's handle.

At that, Terkeeli flicked his right wrist, and called upon the Force to pull his concealed lightsaber out of his sleeve and into his hand. The dim corridor erupted in a flash of blue, and he swung his arm back. There was the piercing sound of the blade splitting through metal, accompanied by a quick scream of pain as the attacker's lower leg was cut off at the knee. The man fell backward, releasing his hold on the Squib, vibroblade clattering to the floor.

Terkeeli whirled around acrobatically and turned to face his maimed foe. At this point, a sane combatant would surrender, but the Squib wasn't surprised at all to see the armored man already reaching for the heavy blaster holstered at his hip.

_So be it,_ Terkeeli thought.

The first blaster shot came as Terkeeli was already whirling through the air, missing him completely. The second came a lot closer to hitting its mark, but the Squib batted the bolt out of the air with his lightsaber before landing with both feet on the man's abdomen. Even through the layer of armor, he could feel the grunt of discomfort as he came down.

Before his opponent could recover well enough to aim a third shot, Terkeeli brought his lightsaber down with a reverse grip, driving the bright blue blade down into the man's chest, impaling him through the heart. With one last jerk and a soft gurgle, his enemy went still.

A quick, clean death. That was the best offer Terkeeli could make him. Perhaps it was more than a warmongering Mandalorian deserved, his companions might say.

There was no time to ruminate, though. The shaky corridors of this ship would do nothing to muffle the echo of blaster fire, which meant that the Mandalorians already knew that Terkeeli was here, now. He had to get moving.

Generally speaking, the Squibs were not a species that had a strong connection to the Force. There were very few sentient species in the galaxy that didn't produce Force-sensitives at all, however, and so there was the occasional Squib fuzzling who had the innate potential to cause mischief on a scale larger than himself.

Rarer still, though, than Squibs who could feel the Force were Squibs who were inducted into the Jedi Order. Terkeeli wasn't the first, but to his own knowledge, he was the only one alive today; it had been at least a few generations since there had been another Squib Jedi, existing in the living memory of only the most long-lived members of the Jedi High Council.

As far as he was concerned, however, Terkeeli was a Jedi first and a Squib second. As he gazed down at the slain Mandalorian soldier and then at his lightsaber, he recalled a time—so long ago, now—when he was just a wide-eyed child who saw that signature weapon as a 'koovy blaster-stick' and not as the true symbol that it was. More than just a weapon, it was a badge of respect and of honor, a physical representation of the fact that he was Terkeeli-amurdionon, Jedi Knight.

Taking just one more moment to catch his breath, the Squib extinguished his lightsaber and clipped it to his belt. If he played his cards right, he could still regain the element of surprise. Against a ship full of armed Mandalorians, any edge at all was a crucial one.

The corridor was empty for now, but someone would already be on their way to investigate the scuffle that had just taken place. A quick look around showed no immediate turnoffs into which Terkeeli might duck, and so he instead perked his ears to listen for sounds of the rattling ventilation system. That, at least, was much easier to pinpoint, the rickety vessel's propensity for magnifying noise having at least one benefit.

Finding a ventilation grille, Terkeeli raised a hand and willed the grating to fall outward. It popped free of its weak hinges, and the Squib darted forward to catch it before it could clatter to the floor. Keeping hold of it in one hand, he hopped upward, assisted by the Force, and quickly twisted himself around to yank the grille back in place behind him.

Inside the ventilation ducts, the sounds of the ship chugging along through space made the situation feel even more grim. Every few seconds, Terkeeli could hear a seal pop or hear a containment field flicker, followed by the rushing hiss of atmosphere escaping into the vacuum of space, or the spark of a circuit shorting out as failsafe shutters were triggered to slam closed.

What _were_ Mandalorians doing with a ship like this? Forget battle-worthy—this thing wasn't even _space_-worthy! There had to be some reason, some very good reason that they were taking such care in guarding this piece of junk as they pushed forward, full force, toward Skor II. If Terkeeli's infiltration team couldn't figure out what that reason was soon enough, they might just have to bust the ship apart from the inside while they were still on board.

Even with his diminutive height and short frame, Terkeeli wasn't able to crawl through the ventilation system in complete silence, but there was enough clattering and shaking going on that he could only hope that his own noises were indistinguishable from those that the ship was already making. Ideally, he'd take more time to disguise his presence, but time wasn't on his side. When more shouting and more blaster fire echoed in through the ducts, the Squib gave up all pretense of being stealthy.

Why had the Force brought them all here? Terkeeli couldn't help but wonder, even as he crawled as fast as he could toward the source of the commotion. He counted at least five different weapons being fired, and he knew, somehow, before the noise even started to die down that he was going to be too late. By the time he reached the grille that looked down into the cargo bay down below, the fighting had stopped, and saw with his own eyes what the Force had already shown him a second before.

Sprawled out on the floor next to an unmarked cargo container, with a still-smoldering burn mark square in the middle of his chest, was Kolib. Though the Miraluka had a broad strip of cloth covering the vestigial remnants of his eyes, Terkeeli still knew that he was dead.

Alongside Kolib, though, were also three dead Mandalorian soldiers. Kolib had never received any formal Jedi training, but his connection to the Force (and years spent getting in and out of trouble along the Outer Rim) had made him a crack shot with a blaster pistol, and if nothing else, he'd definitely gone down fighting. Two rifle-wielding Mandalorians stepped into view to check the Miraluka's corpse, and Terkeeli had to bite his lip to keep from grunting in anger as one of them kicked the body to make sure it was truly dead.

Three out of five. Three out of five members of a Mandalorian fireteam. There weren't many individuals in the galaxy who could hope to pull that off—and even fewer who could do so with just a blaster pistol. From a blunt, tactical standpoint, Kolib had done quite a good job; had he been a Mandalorian, his comrades would have been pleased, would have found honor in such a death.

But Terkeeli was no Mandalorian, and Kolib was—had been—his friend. His friend, and his valuable comrade. _Let this have been for something_, the Squib told himself, and then he kicked out the grille and dropped down into the cargo bay.

He landed in a crouch, drawing his lightsaber as he fell and activating it the moment his feet touched the ground. The pair of Mandalorians turned away from Kolib as both the sound and the glow of the saber filled the cargo bay. The Squib leaped forward as the closer of the two began to bring his rifle to bear.

Terkeeli's natural Squib agility made him innately suited to the finer points of the _Ataru_ form. Back in his days as a Padawan, in his many long years of Jedi training on Kamparas, Master Yei-Sa had joked that Terkeeli's prowess might give the Order cause to change the name from "the Way of the Hawk-Bat" to "the Way of the Squib." By the time he had reached knighthood, Terkeeli had surpassed Yei-Sa himself as a full-fledged master of the form.

His first swing split the Mandalorian's blaster rifle clear in half. The resulting shower of sparks flew up into the narrow T-shaped visor, making his opponent stagger back half a step, giving Terkeeli the perfect opening to slash down along his chest and abdomen. As the first Mandalorian fell, Terkeeli spun back around on his feet, deflecting the two blaster bolts that came flying at him before flinging his lightsaber across the cargo bay, striking the remaining Mandalorian through the chest with deadly accuracy.

Terkeeli brought his lightsaber back to himself using the Force, then turned it off and dropped to his knees next to Kolib. He brought his fingers to the Miraluka's neck, then sighed sadly as he stroked his fallen comrade's arm with his furred hand. All he could do was trust and hope that his friend's strong tie to the Force meant that the Force would take care of him in death.

Back in the land of the living, Terkeeli also had to trust that he could complete his mission. Vrask would be counting on him, too—and should the Bothan run into trouble, perhaps this time, Terkeeli wouldn't be too late to save him.

The ease with which the surviving Mandalorians had fallen to Terkeeli's lightsaber revealed that their armor hadn't been made of any good-quality Mandalorian iron. Had these been Mandalorians of millennia past, even a Jedi Knight would have thought twice about charing headfirst into mere two-on-one odds. This band, however—these raiders who were now causing their own brand of havoc on the Outer Rim—were not the Mandalorians of old.

The problem was that Mandalorians were a people united by an ideal more than anything else, and that made them, in a very real sense, impossible to ever completely defeat. Even if the warriors aboard this ship, aboard all the ships in the attack force currently assaulting Terkeeli's homeword down below, didn't descend directly from the Crusaders or Neo-Crusaders from earlier centuries, they still shared that same love of battle, held to the same code of honor through warfare and conflict, and came together under the banner of the one who had taken up the title and mantle of Mandalore. That made them Mandalorian enough.

A quick examination of the cargo bay revealed nothing of great note, no better clue as to what this ship's true purpose was. If it were designed as a landing craft, surely it would be packed to the gills with more soldiers than Terkeeli had seen. If it were a munitions craft, the cargo bay wouldn't be as stark and bare as it was. The lack of an obvious answer was making the Squib more worried by the minute, as if the truth had to be something unfathomably sinister by process of elimination.

Terkeeli tried to find some direction in the Force, but there was none to be found. Ready to face his trials as they came, then, he headed toward the front of the ship. He'd comb every square meter of this thing if he had to, that much he swore to himself.

As he made his way along the causeway from the cargo bay to the front of the ship, the rattling and clattering of the vessel's distending frame got louder. Whether it was because he was getting closer to some more fragile part of the ship, or because the ship itself was getting closer to coming apart, the Squib couldn't tell. The sounds definitely got louder whenever the ship would roll or yaw to either the left or right, and it felt as if the artificial gravity generators were beginning to weaken, as well.

Off to port, thin, wispy jets of condensed, cooling gas appeared as breathable air slowly leaked out through tiny holes in the hull. There were no viewports here, so Terkeeli couldn't see how the greater battle outside was going. Again, the Force told him nothing, nothing beyond the fact that the true danger was here—something he didn't need the Force to tell him in order to know it.

As he rounded the next corner, the Squib came to an abrupt halt, getting a good look, now, at the bowels of the ship.

Where much of the vessel's greater infrastructure might ordinarily have been centered, this section of the middle of the ship appeared to have been hollowed out, reworked and retrofit quite a bit. In the new space that had been generated there were over a dozen large, cylindrical pods, each one several times Terkeeli's own modest size. If his Squib affinity for technology couldn't help him identify the ship, it was still enough for him to know what _these_ were.

This was a massive payload of baradium plasma-core missiles, probably dating all the way back to the Great Hyperspace War. How these Mandalorians had gotten their hands on so many of them—in such well-kept and working order—was beyond Terkeeli's guess.

It was with horror, though, that he realized just why this ancient vessel was so close to falling apart: it was _designed_ to fall apart.

On its current heading, this ship would plow right into the atmosphere of Skor II—but not before the gravitational and tidal forces of the planet tore the ship apart and caused that payload of missiles to scatter and disperse. They'd circle the planet like rapidly-falling debris, getting quickly yanked from orbit, their casings melting away upon reentry, igniting in the upper atmosphere and turning the very sky itself into a cascade of plasma-fire that would engulf nearly half the planet.

The Squib pulled out his comlink. "This is Terkeeli-amurdionon to the Republic Fleet," he announced, breaking radio silence. "Tell the Reclamation Fleet to get ready and warm up their tractor beams. We're going to need to intercept some trash."

There was a pause before any response came. "Roger that, Terkeeli," came the voice of Admiral Mothma. "What's your mission progress?"

"I'm going to try to turn this ship around," Terkeeli replied, turning his back on the unsecured missile payload, "but in the event that I can't, I'm going to make sure that this ship comes apart, and there's going to be some hefty ordinance that we can't let hit the atmosphere."

Another pause. "Understood," the Admiral said blankly. "Keep me apprised. May the Force be with you, Terkeeli."

Turning off his comlink, Terkeeli turned and looked back at the missiles one last time before heading through the next hatchway. If he had the sort of experience that members of the Reclamation Fleet had, he would probably know how to disable them. As it was, he'd probably just end up blowing the whole load of them to bits if he made the attempt, and while that might (just might) spare Skor II its horrible fate, he couldn't consider that an option while Vrask was still on board, too. Kolib hadn't died just so the rest of the team could get killed off with him.

Terkeeli never liked to doubt himself, but never had the stakes of a mission been so high for him. He had been from one side of the galaxy to the other, many times, using his talents to ferret out the dark side and its agents, to bring peace and justice as was the time-honored duty of a Jedi Knight. He had saved lives; he had ended them. Sometimes, he'd even failed in his tasks, but he'd always moved on, promised himself he'd do better next time, and faced forward instead of backward.

There could _be_ no failure here, though. He'd see to it that this mobile superweapon was stopped, even if it did have to mean the lives of him and his comrades. Peace and justice would be upheld.

Slipping through the next hatch, Terkeeli could again better hear the sounds of commotion throughout the ship. He hoped that Vrask was at least making some trouble for the Mandalorians in his own way (_with better luck than Kolib_, he added dismally). If Terkeeli could just reach the front of the ship, he might be able to wrest control of it and fly it to safety, or at least buy the Republic and Squib forces enough time to get the missiles to a safe distance.

A small explosion rocked the ship off toward the starboard side. Whatever it was had come from the inside, not the outside, and the vessel's structural integrity at least seemed to hold for now. Vrask's work? Likely, the Squib thought, as he heard more panicked shouting coming from the front of the ship, commands being barked out and armored boots tromping along shaky durasteel plating.

The bridge was probably just beyond the next doorway, if Terkeeli's mental layout of the ship could be trusted—and if some explosive distraction had helped to clear it out, this might be his best chance to make a move, foolhardy though it otherwise may be.

For a long moment, Terkeeli stood there, eyes closed. _So be it_, he told himself, and then he strode forward, waving his hand to activate the door panel.

A truly splendid view of Skor II took up the main viewport directly ahead, the sight crisscrossed by the occasional starfighter or run of laser fire. Standing dead-center, gazing forward at the ever-closer planet like it was destiny itself, was a tall Twi'lek, his long _lekku_ coiled around his armor-plated shoulders, his right hand grasping a gleaming metal facsimile of an ancient Mythosaur axe.

The Twi'lek turned. Though it was hidden behind a helmet, Terkeeli could feel the steely stare directed at him. He said nothing, but he knew now who he faced.

The door behind Terkeeli slid closed, and the Squib drew and ignited his lightsaber.

_«Your cowardly scheme ends here, Mand'alor.»_

Even though Terkeeli couldn't see the Twi'lek's face, he could see him flinch with obvious surprise at the Squib's command of the Mando'a tongue. _Element of surprise,_ Terkeeli reminded himself, even as his fingers tightened around the hilt of his weapon.

"This is the best defense your pathetic planet can muster?" replied Mandalore in raspy, Twi'lek-accent Basic. "They send a single one of you up here with a lightsaber?"

"My name is Terkeeli-amurdionon, and I am a Jedi Knight."

Mandalore leveled his axe at Terkeeli. "You are nothing," he hissed. "You are just one pest, and one I will soon be rid of."

Terkeeli did not waver. "This ship is on a direct course for the planet," he said. "You know that it will not survive reentry."

"A true warrior's place is at the forefront," Mandalore proclaimed. "There is no honor in leading from a position of safety."

"If the ship does not survive reentry, you will likely not survive either." The Squib took a step forward.

Mandalore brought his axe into both hands, then. "A Mandalorian does not fear death in battle."

"But flying straight into certain death?" Terkeeli asked. "To die before you reach the fight? Is that a death befitting the great Mandalore himself?"

"And has it not occurred to you that I plan to survive?" There was a defensive tone to Mandalore's challenge. "That I have assured that this section of the ship will escape the devastation unscathed?" He motioned with his axe to the port-side entryway through which Terkeeli had come.

From inside the bridge, Terkeeli could see that blast doors could seal off the bridge from the rest of the ship. He turned back to face Mandalore. "So if you do survive, it will be by being a coward," he said.

"He won't need to worry about that. I've seen to that much."

Both Terkeeli and Mandalore turned in unison to see the smirking Bothan standing in the starboard side entryway. In one hand, he juggled a thermal detonator; in the other, he held up his trusty hydrospanner.

Terkeeli's heart jumped upon seeing Vrask alive and well, having gotten the drop on the two of them, to boot. "I think you'll find your little safety failsafes have, well... failed," the Bothan announced as he leaned against the wall. "Also, I think the rest of your crew is a bit indisposed at the moment, so good luck finding someone to fix that for you."

Without moving from his position, Mandalore shot a glance at one of the bridge's display readouts. From where he stood, Terkeeli could hear the resulting snarl from within Mandalore's helmet.

"Turn the ship around, Mandalore," Terkeeli said. "End this."

"There is no turning back!" the Twi'lek shouted.

"There is always the option to turn back." Terkeeli lowered his lightsaber and looked straight into the visor of Mandalore's helmet.

For several long, enduring seconds, there was silence on the bridge, time marked only by the occasional rattle and shake of the ship's innards. Then, with a roar of defiance, Mandalore swung his axe around, and—Terkeeli couldn't see what he did, exactly, but he must have pressed some type of hidden switch or button, because the top of the burst open with a flash of light.

The sudden energy blast caught Vrask directly in the chest before the Bothan even had time to react. Without so much as a grunt of pain or cry of shock, he crumpled in the entryway, his thermal detonator clattering harmlessly to the deck plating, his hydrospanner still clutched firmly in his hand.

Terkeeli shouted wordlessly, and tried to reach out to his friend with the Force, but found nothing, felt nothing. Mandalore had brought his axe up into a double-handed grip again, and swung down at the Squib. Terkeeli first ducked, then leaped aside, his lightsaber brought back up into the opening stance of _Ataru_.

"Come, then, tiny Jedi!" Mandalore said, one hand held out to beckon a challenge. "It is like you said yourself: let us end this."

It was a challenge that Terkeeli was all too willing to answer, now. Launching himself forward with the Force, he spun through the air, swing his short lightsaber in a wide arc at Mandalore, who proved to be remarkably quick despite his heavy armor. The Twi'lek dodged to one side, reversed the grip on his axe, and made to swing at Terkeeli again. Terkeeli recognized the attempt at a feint, though, and sidestepped in order to force Mandalore to overcompensate, hoping that his much larger opponent would lose precious balance.

The gambit seemed to work, and the weight of the axe pulled Mandalore into a swing that he was unable to check. Terkeeli sprung upward, eyeing the spot where the Twi'lek's neck met the shoulder, seeing a quick end to the duel—_quick and clean, more than a warmongering Mandalorian deserved_.

Before Terkeeli's swing could connect, Mandalore brought his axe back up to block. The Squib could see how his lightsaber would split the metal pole apart like it wasn't even there and continue right on to where it—

—but the instant Terkeeli's lightsaber made contact with that long metal shaft, the blue blade flickered and then fizzled out of existence. The Squib nearly fell head over feet before landing too close to Mandalore for his comfort.

Mandalore practically laughed in Terkeeli's face as he watched the Squib's moment of panic. He tried to reignite his lightsaber, but to no avail. Revelation dawned on him as he looked up again. _Cortosis._ Who _were_ these Mandalorians? How did they obtain munitions from the Great Hyperspace War, and now also _pure_ cortosis weaponry?

But that no longer mattered. One quick glance out the viewport, at Skor II, was enough to remind Terkeeli that they needed to be stopped, that the answers to those other questions weren't important anymore. The details could be sorted out later, after the dust had settled.

Without his lightsaber, Terkeeli was at a marked disadvantage. Still, the saber was but one weapon a Jedi had at his disposal; with the Force as his ally, he could never be truly disarmed.

Then, from the starboard entryway where Vrask lay dead, came harried footsteps, followed by a pair of Mandalorian soldiers with rifles already aimed at Terkeeli. Stragglers that Vrask had missed, perhaps? Or maybe ones he'd thought he'd incapacitated more thoroughly than he had.

Terkeeli thrust an arm out toward the two of them, fingers up and palm outward. A blaster bolt caught the Squib in the shoulder, singeing his clothing and making him gasp in a quick flash of pain, but the two Mandalorians were knocked clean off their feet by an invisible rush of power, as if they'd just been struck by a solid wall.

The Squib turned back to face Mandalore next, but the tall Twi'lek was faster. He grabbed Terkeeli by the neck and lifted him with one arm clear off of the floor. Terkeeli kicked and thrashed, but his struggles were met with the tightening of the Mandalorian crushgaunt that now closed in around his throat.

"Take a look, tiny Jedi," Mandalore demanded, holding Terkeeli up to the viewport. "Take one last look at your rat-ridden world before it burns."

And so Terkeeli looked, and he found hope in what he saw.

At least two of the Mandalorian assault frigates had been destroyed by now, and one of the others was taking heavy damage from the Republic forces currently besieging it. Further beyond that, a good two dozen Squib needle ships, each decked out with ten tractor beams apiece, were coming into position, escorted by more Republic starfighters.

Terkeeli turned to look back at Mandalore, but T-shaped visor betrayed nothing. Over Mandalore's shoulder, he could see Vrask's body lying on the floor, and behind him, the other two Mandalorians were beginning to get up.

"It's a real shame, Mandalore," Terkeeli choked out, his snout twisting into whatever semblance of a smile he could muster. "You came all this way, but you apparently didn't brush up on your culture."

"Meaning what?" Mandalore laughed.

"Meaning that you clearly didn't learn one of the galaxy's most important lessons," Terkeeli replied. And with those words, along with all the effort he could muster, he concentrated on the thermal detonator lying on the deck, sending it flying across the bridge.

The small, round device smacked off the corner of one of the computer consoles, ricocheting into a tiny arc through the air before landing on deck again, rolling to a slow stop near the center of the bridge, a tiny light now blinking, just behind the now-depressed activation trigger.

Mandalore turned, looking at the thermal detonator before quickly turning to look at his tiny captive again.

Terkeeli flashed him a wink. "When a Squib offers you a bargain, you're supposed to take it."

There was a bright flash, then, and both Mandalore and the bridge of the ancient vessel were subsumed in a fiery fusion burst as Terkeeli-amurdionon, Jedi Knight, gave himself over to the will of the Force.


End file.
